


Amuse-bouche

by templemarker



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1597877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He'll kill you, you know," Alice said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amuse-bouche

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ilthit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Leftovers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/917243) by [Ilthit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit). 



> Please note that this story is compliant with any and all content you might experience watching _Luther_.

Alice took Justin with her. 

In the end, it didn't require threats or cajoling, no exploitative means to an end of screwing with Luther. It only took her cornering him in his flat, a moment between an investigation and a manhunt, her on the couch as if she belonged there, him too tired to see with clear eyes. 

"He'll kill you, you know," Alice said, as Justin whipped his baton out and raised it, unwavering, at her. 

"Get the fuck out of my flat," Justin said in a tense, dark voice. Alice hadn't known the boy had it in him. 

"This case," she continued, checking her manicure. "It's likely to kill him, almost certain to kill you." She looked up, held his red-rimmed gaze. "You are just a bullet point in this story, my dear, though a pretty one at that." She smirked, uncrossed her legs. Leaning forward, she said, hissing, "He'll kill you. He won't mean to, not our beloved Luther, but he'll kill you all the same. And that will kill him."

Justin's hands started to shake with adrenaline and exhaustion; he blinked hard, twice, and said hoarsely, "Look, you mad bint, I don't know what you're doing with DCI Luther, but you should keep me fucking out of it. I've got a case to solve--"

She shrugged as he spoke, sighed theatrically, and in a blink she had his baton off him and a patch applied to his neck, tiny needles piercing the skin. 

"Wha-" he said, falling to his knees, fingertips touching the patch.

"Sleep, dear boy," Alice said, her queer smile on her face. "I'll keep you alive."

*

He wakes, or mostly wakes, in a bed, blue skies out the window. He panics, but his training kicks in and he starts assessing his situation. Not London. Probably not England, from the smells coming through the window. There's a pitcher of water by the bed; he pours some into the glass and raises it to his lips, but stops short before he drinks. It's probably drugged. How did he get here? How could Alice Morgan have kidnapped a grown man bodily away?

He gets up, goes to the door; it's unlocked and leads out to a sitting room, the television on but quiet. They're speaking no language Justin's ever heard, and the sinking feeling in his chest drops lower. Where the _fuck_ are they. 

There's a note on the counter. _You seemed to need the sleep, DS Ripley. Don't worry, nothing's poisoned. Back soon. -A._

Justin crumpled the note angrily in his palm. His stomach was aching with hunger at the thought of food, and he couldn't keep himself from opening the refrigerator and taking out the box of something that smelled like curry. Another box revealed rice, and he ate it cold, standing barefoot at the counter with no idea how he'd gotten there, or how he'd come to be dressed. 

He'd figure out an escape route next. 

*

There was no escaping. Each time he fell, like there was some chemical inhibition keeping him from traveling more than a few metres away before his limbs shook. Hands darker than his own would pick him up, deliver him to the flat, put a drink of water in his hand. He'd fall asleep, only to wake up again with the awful reality of déjà vu: blue skies through the window, foreign smells in the air. 

His side hurt, and when he pulled up his shirt he found fresh stitches; he stumbled towards the bathroom and retched. 

She came in, then, and his mouth curled in a snarl, weak arms reaching for her but falling limply at his side. 

"Oh, dear boy," she said; it was as if she didn't want to say his name. "I'm keeping you safe, you know. It's what he would have wanted. They all think you're dead, of course, but I'll tell him soon enough that I took you away from it, from your death, from him."

When she smiled, he knew she wasn't crazy, and that was the scariest part of all of this.

*

When he stops trying to run, she pats him on the head, brings him books and papers. There's no telephone, no internet, no computers in the flat. His fingers itch for his mobile. He reads, because there's nothing else to do. She has him on a leash.

"Or something like, dear boy," she says, shrugging one shoulder. "It's a complicated surgical procedure involving time-release sedatives and hormonal triggers from stress; I'm sure it would bore you. But a leash is apt," she smiles. "Who knows what trouble you'd get yourself into, out there on your own with no one to bring you in? He didn't take very good care of you, I'm afraid."

He wants to scream at her: he's a man, not a boy; a police detective, not a pet to be heeled. He tried, once, screaming until he was gasping for breath, trying to reach for her to choke her, bite her, anything to get away--

\--but his arms dropped, he sank to his knees, and he fell into troubled, dreamless sleep with her face the last thing he saw. 

Justin looks for the exits every moment.

*

He doesn't know how long he's been with her when he realizes she's in love with Luther, or something like love. 

They've moved twice, from the first place he woke up to another by the ocean, where he was allowed outside. Now they're in the desert. He thinks they're in Mexico or another country that speaks Spanish; he recognizes it but can't understand. He's allowed to go to the café near their flat by himself, but whenever he tries to ask for a phone or computer they give him pitying looks, patting him on the shoulder, muttering things that sound like blessings. He thinks Alice told them he's simple, or that he's ill. 

There are flowers blooming in the square, water trickling in the fountain. When Alice is admiring at the red spreading leaves of the orchid on the kitchen table, or talking about Frida Kahlo, Justin hears what she's saying about Luther. John. Fuck the man, he'll call him John for all he called Justin his mate but can't be bothered to find him, when John's psycho girlfriend has kidnapped him in some homage to their twisted relationship. 

She smiles at him, like she knows what he's thinking; puts another book in front of him, knowing he's nearly done with the one in his hands. He hates her, of course, but even the hate makes his body feel heavy, makes his eyelids drop. Justin now hates being unconscious more than any other thing in the world, fights sleep when it comes. She takes him places, now, speaks fluently wherever they are, keeping Justin invisible. He finds that his silence is preferable to being ignored. She asks his opinions about things, spins stories that sound like cases and asks him what he would do, how he would solve the puzzle. His throat is dry the first time he talks at length in months, and she presses a bottle of water into his hands, almost caring. 

When she throws him another of her queer smiles, he wonders if she's trying to make new memories, ones to replace or supplant those she has of John. 

He falls silent, but Alice's mind forgets nothing She's made him a victim, but with every question he answers he feels more like her sidekick. 

*

Justin isn't giving in. 

There's a fresh cut in his side. He was mutinous when he found it, raising a jar he wanted to throw at her head. But he's been through this enough to recognize when the drug will kick in, and it takes everything in him to put the jar down, turn on his heel, and sit on the sofa. 

She says, from the kitchen, "I'm going to step out, bring back supper. Oh-and John says hello."

Justin whips his head around, but she's already slipped out the door. His breath comes hard, and he works to control it. Alice is a liar, a thief, but her cruelty is more subtle than this. 

John knows he's alive. His hands barely shake as he reaches for his book, opening the page and running his eyes over the same lines again and again. 

The sedative doesn't come. 

He's learning.


End file.
